


Aim for the Heart (Shoot to Kill)

by Smiley5494



Series: The Persephone Universe [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: BAMF Number Five | The Boy, Background Character Death, Character Study, Character Study of Two Characters At Once, Don't Like Don't Read, Everyone Has Issues, Internalized Acephobia, Internalized Homophobia, MCD is Persephone, Not Canon Compliant, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Podfic Welcome, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Suicidal Thoughts, and ben and percy, dark themes, griddy's donuts, many trips there, ps its the apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiley5494/pseuds/Smiley5494
Summary: A character study of Five, with a study of Percy from his POV.
Series: The Persephone Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535063
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Aim for the Heart (Shoot to Kill)

Ever since Number Five was a kid of four and a half he’d tried to protect his siblings. Ever since he stood up and lied to their Dad for the first time, he’d known that he had to be the strongest. He’d competed with Eight to be the de-facto ‘eldest’ sibling, and felt they were both secure in that role. Officially, Number One was the leader of the Umbrella Academy, but, Numbers Five and Eight were the ‘elder’ siblings. They were the ones that the others turned to when scared, when worried. They were the ones that were always _there_. Stable siblings. The ones compared to rocks, solid and strong.

In reality, neither were very or rock-like at all.

* * *

When they were five he noticed how Eight would avoid them. She wouldn’t speak to them and more often than not, she would hide away and just observe instead of joining in. Occasionally she would vanish for hours on end.

“Are you being a good girl and staying away from your siblings?” Grace asked one evening as Five hid on top of the fridge. Eight’s head was bowed but he knew she knew he was listening. Grace continued, in the same cheerful tone that disguised a hint of fury, “You know your father has forbidden you from being in the same room as them without an adult present.”

“I haven’t told any of them anything.” Eight replied tensely, keeping her head down. “None of them know anything about Dad or _Seven’s powers_.”

Grace hushed Eight loudly just as Five nearly made a squeak of surprise. What did Eight mean by “Seven’s Powers”? What did she know that none of them could know? 

“Eight!” Grace said sharply, “you never know who could be listening in, sweetheart, keep quiet and know who you can trust and who you can’t. The walls have ears, dear.”

Five would remember that lesson for the rest of his life. He would apply it, to everyone he knew, never trusting enough to speak his true thoughts.

* * *

Five was older than Eight when he started playing in her game. He knew she knew everyone down to the finest details, he knew that Eight kept tabs on each of them and that she knew everything that they knew. There were no secrets from Number Eight. Five knew that she knew _him_ better than he knew himself.

The siblings were six when Five spotted Eight writing in her notebooks for the first time. He assumed that the notebook was a diary and stole it when she put it down and turned to talk to Grace. He jumped to the roof and opened it.

Until that moment Five only _thought_ that Eight was his most dangerous and smartest sibling. When he opened that notebook he _knew_ that Number Eight was someone to be feared. He flicked through the foreign languages and numbers that meant something to her but were incomprehensible to him. He only made it through a couple of pages before Eight found him.

How she found him, Five had no idea. What he did know, was that she was someone he wanted on his side. He knew he never wanted her to leave—that if she did his job of protecting their siblings would be ten times harder.

What she did when she found him scared him to death. She used her powers to hold him over the edge of the roof.

“What do you know, Five?” Eight asked. For a tiny seven-year-old, she was terrifying. “I would suggest you tell me before my hand…” she loosened her hold on him and let him fall for a second, “slips.”

Five told her everything and she pulled him back onto the roof.

“You can never tell anyone any of this,” she explained later in Griddy’s, “If Dad knows that you know he will kill Seven. That solves nothing and we would both have failed. I can see if I can get you to come along with me on my solo missions, we can talk freely then.”

* * *

Five and Eight made a deadly combo that decimated the training field. One and Three worked together, One being the brawn and Three the brains, but they had the least amount of deaths out of the three groups. Two, Four, and Six were in between, with Six being reluctant but having one of the highest personal kill counts—second only to Eight.

When Dad paired them up, he did it only to increase the range he could throw Eight at. Five was just the middle man, the transport. He didn’t add much in the eyes of Reginald Hargreeves, simply means to an end. It hurt, but not as much as the realisation that Eight thought of herself as a tool. Something to be used, then thrown away when finished with.

“He doesn’t care about any of us, Five.” Eight said when Five brought it up, dark eyes swirling with suppressed rage. “He only cares about money and power.”

* * *

Now that Dad was allowing Eight to talk to Five with no supervision they figured that she could join them in the attic for party games. One such meeting included truth or dare.

“Eight,” Seven said, face bright and innocent. Seven was naïve, she didn’t understand. “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“What do you and Five do on your missions?”

There was silence as Eight thought, Five’s mind went blank. The things the two of them did most was talking about how to escape with six tag-along siblings and kill.

“We do our jobs.” Eight said sharply after a minute, “We find our target and follow our instructions: Find out what they know and who they’ve told. Then we—”

She cut herself off abruptly. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what she was saying. Or more likely, to read between what she was saying and what she wasn’t. She didn’t mention that what Five did most was hold the target hostage as Eight broke them psychologically: she’d crack their mirrors before driving a wedge into that crack and _twisting_. 

“Then what?” One prompted. “What do you do when you have the information? Turn your target into the authorities with an anonymous tip?”

“No?” Five spoke up, he could see Eight shrinking into herself, eyes on Seven. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking but he knew when a protector was needed. “Why would we do that?”

There was a long awkward silence. Six made to speak up but didn’t. Three had no such qualms.

“So you just let them go free once you have the information?” She asked, “how do you get the information without rumours, do you read their minds?”

“Three,” Five said sharply, “We don’t let them go free, nor do we turn them in. You’re smart, connect the dots.”

“Excuse me,” Eight whispered, “this was probably a mistake, I’ll go now.”

Eight left and One through to Seven watched, disappointed. When she’d gone they turned to Five.

“So you kill them?” Two asked. Five looked him in the eye and nodded.

“When we’re done with them they beg for it,” Five hissed, he probably looked wild. The others shrunk away, “Eight knows how to break people and they can never outrun me, even if they tried. Why do you think Dad sends us on the most missions? We never fail.”

With that final word, Five followed Eight’s lead and left the attic.

* * *

“Children,” Grace announced to the eight children lined up in numerical order, “your father has requested that seven of you get names. They will be presented to you tomorrow after lunch, on your eighth birthdays.”

“Seven?” Eight asked though it was clear she already knew the answer and was hoping she was wrong, “there’s eight of us, not seven.”

“I know, dear,” Grace’s expression flickered from perfectly joyful to furious and back again in the span of a nanosecond. “Now, it’s time for your Commerce and Business class, come along now, children.”

Five caught up with her and tugged on her arm. Grace stopped and leant down to listen.

“Eight will probably ask you to give her name to Seven, give mine instead.” Five whispered, “let Eight keep a name, she needs it more than I do. Dad said to name seven of us; he never said which seven.”

The next day after lunch Eight children lined up in numerical order again. Grace stopped next to them one by one and gave each of them a name. Skipping Five, and including Seven (Vanya) and Eight (Persephone).

Persephone’s look of wonder and amazement made Five’s disappointment of not getting one all the better. He knew who he was and what he was doing. Number Eight didn’t. Number Eight had been dehumanised so much by their Dad that she’d lost all sense of who she was. Now Persephone was an escape, a way to keep her grounded and her mind settled. To help her avoid the cracks in her mirror. That alone made his lack of name worth it.

* * *

When the siblings were ten Klaus snuck in a porn magazine. The entire group were in the attic passing the magazine around looking at the pictures. Five had no interest, simply passive, passing it on as quickly as he could.

Instead of looking at the pictures Five watched his siblings. Most of them seemed interested, Klaus pointing at things and waving it in Diego’s face. Vanya’s full face flush as she studied the images. Allison seemed to be critiquing it, though she didn’t seem very interested. Persephone however, looked panicked. It was almost as though she wanted to run—to avoid the pictures as best as she could.

She looked so uncomfortable and sick at the thoughts that it wasn’t only Five that picked up on it. They stopped passing it to her, the amount she relaxed was so noticeable Five put it out of his mind.

* * *

They’re eleven and Persephone gets her first solo mission since Dad paired her and Five up. Five’s worried for her, he can tell she hasn’t been sleeping well, paranoia and worry keeping her awake. She stoops when she walks, hiding in plain sight. The stress is getting to her and Five can tell that ‘Number Eight’ is bleeding through into ‘Persephone’. The escape becoming another trap.

She came back with blood splattered over her hands and arms, her eyes dead and not speaking.

Her fall into the darkness was so quick it took him completely by surprise. 

Five had always thought of Persephone as the ocean. She was the riptide, the calm tide that dragged people away from land and into the depths. Her simmering rage and deadly depths, hidden by a deceptively calm outward appearance. It was ignorance that had most people dying by her hand.

The day before, her dark eyes held a twinkle, like a sun glittering on soft waves, more calm than rough, a comfort that he takes for granted. The next, the twinkle is gone. Her eyes are the ocean during a major storm, twisting and turning and smashing ships against hidden rocks to leave thousands to die by her hand. The darkness in them swallowing the warmth Five once found such comforts in. The warmth Five had started to associate with safety and trust.

It took weeks, _months_ , for her to break out of her shell, and even then, layers of secrecy and fear and little insanity remained. Her eyes never regained that trusting and safe warmth but the raging ocean behind her eyes quietened down—stopped drowning minds within their depths. She spoke again after three weeks and it brought unmeasurable relief to Five and the others. Not one person knew exactly what had happened on that mission but it left a lasting mark; a dark smudge on the team.

* * *

When they turned twelve, and Persephone stepped forwards before Five could repeat the performance he’d done seven years before, the family found out what had caused her fragile sanity to crack.

She stared into their father’s eyes and told him; in two simple words— _(“I’m gay.”)_ —why her sanity had spiralled down and that she wouldn’t lie to herself about who she was and what she believed. Five looked on with respect that few (read: only Persephone and Vanya) would ever earn.

None of them saw her for weeks and when they did she was hurt. Bruises and broken bones and even a concussion. They all helped out, even Luther (who believed with all his soul that their Dad knew what he was doing and everything he did had a reason that would be better for them in the long run) knew that what their dad did this one time was _wrong_.

“I was willing to keep it a secret for the rest of my life.” Persephone admitted to Five on their next ‘solo’ mission. “Yeah, I knew it would haunt me but I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why?” Five asked, casually tying up their target, who watched on in growing horror.

“I was scared,” Persephone admitted, readying herself for the next part. “I didn’t know how any of you would react. I thought—“

“Thought what?”

“I thought I was broken.” She whispered once their job had been finished, “before that day, I thought that there was something wrong with me and I was okay with that. I knew that it didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the others when they spoke of celeb crushes and I didn’t understand Ben’s books when they spoke of romance and…” she shuddered, “ _sex_. So I figured that protecting everyone from Dad and growing up in that house had stunted my growth somehow. Still do somewhat.”

“Why did you break then?” Five asked her in Griddy’s later that night.

“I thought,” she halted until they were alone again, “I thought that if this is why I didn’t understand romance what else didn’t I understand? And what if I corrupted any of you. What if it was a bad thing?”

“It’s not. And you’re not broken.” Five promised, and the way she lit up, eyes brightening and the warmth coming back for those few moments made it all worth it.

* * *

Five had been thinking about time travel for years now. If he could time travel with all of his siblings away from their Dad then he could protect them all, consistently. It would have to be soon, there wasn’t much light left in Persephone anymore, and Vanya was getting left out more and more. So he brought it up, over and over again.

He needed to test it, whether or not Dad agreed, so picked a time where he would have no choice but to listen and decided what day.

The day before his Time-Travel-Test-Day came about Persephone approached him.

“Five,” she said quietly, looking around for anyone listening. “If anything happens to me, there are things in a box under a loose floorboard under my bed. The keys to the notebook are hidden in everyone’s prized things. The sort of stuff they look at all the time.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Five said, worried. If she was planning something he would need to keep an eye on her. “Nothing.”

She gave him a look that clearly said ‘you-poor-thing-you-have-no-idea-what-is-happening’.

He started to think that it was a just-in-case senario.

* * *

_Five still runs, he still time travels._

_Two years later he finds out she died only six months after he left. He learns why he never found Six or Eight in those first minutes of the apocalypse. He learns about how she died. A murder, he declares, a planned death. It would have been quick at least. She wouldn’t have expected it._

_Fifty-odd years later he finds out that he should have been more worried about his most deadly sibling. He learns that her death wasn’t an accident. She knew it was coming. She knew what to expect._

__

_Fifty-odd years after he left he thinks that maybe his original assumption was correct._


End file.
